


The Avenger and the Piano Man

by fangasmic



Series: The Ballad of Cold Oak [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 20:22:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14984882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangasmic/pseuds/fangasmic
Summary: Repost of the NRFTW Western AU.  All credit for the original characters is to the writers who breathed life into them.





	The Avenger and the Piano Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gorned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gorned/gifts).



He’s a dandy sort of fellow, tender and warm, with big eyes the colour of a cloudless day and hair that reminds Raum of home, in that it’s yellow like the corn muffins his little sister makes when she’s feeling a sight less prickley than usual.  Raum meets him in a town called Golden, which he thinks is strangely fitting.

Raum’s got every intention of just passing through town, on one of his wanders that he likes to take when he gets frustrated with Cold Oak and his family living on top of one another while his older brother and baby sister try to hold things together.  It’s been hard since their pa ran off on them, but that was years and years ago.  Raum thinks it should get easier, but it doesn’t and sometimes he just needs to walk away.  His temper’s always been terrible and his wandering is far better than hitting one of his brothers, or getting himself thrown in jail, or making his usually stoic and untouchable sister cry when he gets into one of his rages.

Only, Raum can’t leave.  Not once he’s seen the gentleman play.  He’s entranced by the way his fingers dance over the keys.  Raum’s never been the type of fellow to smile much, but the piano man draws it right out of him, try as Raum might to hide it behind his drink.  He watches the piano man play, struck by the urge to make his acquaintence.  Raum’s no coward, so as soon as the fellow’s finished his song, Raum makes his way over.

“That was a fine song, sir,” he states honestly.  “You play real good.”

In the back of his head, he can hear Essie hissing that he ought to have said ‘well’, that the gentleman played 'very well’, but Raum can’t be bothered to correct.  The message is the same, even if the words are wrong.  Raum’s unprepared for the smile he gets in return.  It’s wide and true, pulling at the piano man’s face under his little moustache.  Raum finds it near impossible not to smile back.

“Thank you,” is the soft reply.  “Thank you kindly, sir.  It’s very nice to hear it.”

Raum’s just about knocked flat by the way his stomach drops out in reaction to the piano man’s sweet, voice.  It’s almost like sunshine, the way it makes him feel warm all over, but Raum’ll never tell a soul.  Instead he lifts his shoulders in a careless sort of motion.  “Just the truth, really.  My sister runs a social parlour and the fella she’s got there ain’t half as good as you.  You ought to be real proud of yourself.”

He gets another smile in return and a little laugh.  “You know what they say about pride, don’t you?”

His own laughter creeps up on him, tumbling from his lips in a wheeze, throaty and distorted from disuse.  “That I do, sir.”

“Well, I can’t have you calling me 'sir’ if we’re gonna keep conversing, stranger.  My sister’d be disappointed in me forgetting my manners.  Name’s Peter, but you can call me Pos.  Everybody does.”

“Raum,” he replies, still sort of smiling.  “Pleased to meet you.  Feel like I ought to treat you to a drink, as a reward for keeping us all entertained so well.”

Pos laughs and shakes his head.  “Thank you, but no.  They don’t pay me to drink with the patrons, unfortunately.  They pay me to play.  If you’ll excuse me.”

Nodding, Raum returns to his seat and gets pulled into a game of cards, listening to the music all the while.

Raum stays in Golden for almost three full months before the incident.  He returns to the saloon every night to listen to Pos play and picks up work where he can just to stick around.  Essie’s not happy with him being away so long, Raum can tell from the letters he gets in reply to his own, but Essie’s been an unhappy sort for quite some time.  He gets a letter each from Leth and Lial, requesting that he come back as soon as he’s willing and able, and he assures them that he will.  He just doesn’t want to leave too soon.

Pos is different than most people Raum’s had occasion to spend any length of time around.  He’s happy by nature, content to just play on and play on.  He can play anything, too.  Any kind of music that he can find the sheets for and some that he makes up all on his own.  Raum’s never met somebody that loved their job so much.  Pos’s so much more than that too.  He’s funny in an unexpected sort of way and very loyal.

He’s also far stronger than he looks, as Raum has occasion to find out when they’re walking together down the street one day and they get stopped by a pair of ranchhands, one of which sees fit to comment on the fact that Pos’s sister Maureen, known more often as Mo, is a prostitute.  Mo’s never treated Raum with anything but kindness and he’s eaten at their table and seen the way she cares for Pos, so he steps forward to give the ranchhand a thrashing, but gets stopped by Pos’s hand on his chest.  Pos removes his jacket, which Raum holds for him, rolls up his sleeves and challenges the ranchhand to a fight, stating that “Mo might work for a living, but that doesn’t mean she’s not still a lady.”

The ranchhand ends up a bruised heap of blood and teeth in the middle of the street.  Pos washes his hands, rolls down his sleeves, puts his jacket on and goes about the rest of the day as if nothing unusual has happened.

The incident comes not two days after the night the nature of his acquaintence with Pos changes.

Raum’s taken to escorting Pos home from the saloon at night.  It makes getting up at first light that much harder, but Raum doesn’t mind much.  Not when he gets the pleasure of listening to Pos’s sleepy laughter and the happy babble about the places he and Mo have lived in.  Pos’s happiness is infectious and he makes Raum feel lighter than he has since he was a boy, waving to his father as he rode out for supplies.

“You don’t have to do this every night,” Pos insists, standing with his hand on the doorknob while Raum waits the foot of the three stairs that lead up to the porch.

“Maybe I like to,” Raum replies, leaning against the support post.

Pos bites his lip and hesitates by the door for a moment before crossing the small porch and tugging Raum forward.  His moustache is softer than Raum could have ever imagined when it brushes the skin about Raum’s mouth just before their lips meet.  Raum’s mouth falls slightly open in surprise and Pos shocks him when he capitalizes on this, letting out a needy sort of whine and slipping his tongue between Raum’s lips.

Raum gets control of himself some time later, when he’s got Pos pinned against the pole and he’s pressed up against every possible inch of the other man.  He reluctantly steps away, unsteady, and straightens Pos’s tie.  There’s not a whole lot he can say that hasn’t already been said by the desperate press of his lips or the outright shameful way he’d pressed his parts up against Pos like a dog in heat.

But Pos just smiles and touches the tip of Raum’s nose with a finger.  “I like it too.”

The next night is much the same, except that Pos slides his hand into Raum’s as soon as their out of sight of town, fingers slotting between Raum’s like they belong there.  Raum’s overwhelmed by the whole thing, too shocked to be ashamed by the affection Pos has decided to lavish on him.  He’s firm, though, when Pos tries to get him inside the house.  Raum’s not exactly a man of virtue but he’s got some ideas about courtin’.  Even though Pos is another man and anything they do together ought to be hid behind closed doors and never talked about, Raum knows that there’s a right way to do things and a wrong way.  Pos deserves more than a quick tug and tumble.  So Raum gives him another kiss or two and sends Pos inside, telling Pos that he’ll wait for him outside the saloon the next night.

Raum will always blame himself for what happened that night.  There was a problem at the ranch where he’d been working.  A mare got caught in an out of the way sort of place and it took four of them to get her back out again.  Her leg’d been broken, so all the effort was for nothing, seeing as the rancher decided to put her down anyway.  Raum volunteers to do it, since the other three look half sick at the thought and the rancher’s a shivering old man that’d be more like to shoot one of them instead of the horse.  He does it quick and clean, praying that the poor mare be delivered from her pain simply because he ought to pray.

The whole thing takes far too long and makes him late to escort Pos home.  The saloon is closed when Raum gets there and he is even disappointed that Pos hasn’t waited.  Sighing, Raum heads down the narrow alley between the saloon and the post office, knowing that the back door will be open because Mo and the other girls are still hard at work.  He has intentions of asking her if she’s seen Pos, provided she’s not on her back at the moment, and hopes she’s not angry with him for disappointing her brother.

Raum finds Pos in the alley, face down.  There’s blood staining his yellow hair, so much blood, and Raum all but collapses on his knees beside Pos.  He places a hand on the other man’s back, reassured the smallest bit by the rise and fall, and chokes back vomit when he rolls Pos over and the mess that someone’s made of his face is revealed by the moonlight.

He doesn’t remember much after that.  Raum thinks that he started howling, shouting, screaming, something, but he doesn’t know.  There are snatches of carrying Pos around the back of the saloon and dragging Mo from her business and of someone fetching the surgeon but Raum doesn’t remember anything clearly until the moment that Pos briefly opens his eyes the next morning, looking over at Raum where he’s slumped in a chair by the bed, and then closes them again.

The surgeon tells Mo that it’s very probable that Pos won’t be quite right if and when he wakes again.  Raum hears it too, because he refuses to leave the room.  Mo, who he’s sure knows more than she lets on, doesn’t do a thing to shoo him out.  The surgeon talks about damage to Pos’s mind and how Mo should thank heaven for the little things, like him being able to set Pos’s nose back to rights and the rest of his face looking like it’ll heal without much disfigurement.  Raum nearly strangles the man and is only stopped by Mo telling the surgeon to get the hell out and not come back until he’s called.

When Pos wakes again, two agonizing days later, there’s only the barest glimmer of recognition in his eyes.  “I know you,” he says hoarsely, staring up at Raum.  “Yes.  I know your face.  It is a nice face.”

Mo gets a little more, Pos insisting that he knows she takes care of him and that she is kind, but he is unable to recall either of their names.  He does try to sit up, letting out a broken whine and reaching for his head.  His cloudless eyes fill with tears when he complains about the hurt and asks why he can’t play his piano today.

He remembers the piano, asking to play it daily.  Pos remembers some things, like his own name, some of the places he’s been, though he gets confused when Mo has to remind him that they live in Golden now.  Raum visits him every day, bringing little treats like honey and bread, or fresh milk, a harmonica.  Pos likes the harmonica, takes to it almost right away and doesn’t need a lesson.

In the little time that Raum is not with Pos, he is either writing to his family and making arrangements for them to secure a small house for him in Cold Oak, or searching for the ones who are responsible for what was done to Pos.  They don’t make themselves easy to find, but Raum is determined.

He gets the first one after a night at the saloon when he pretends to drink.  Raum plays hooched and makes a crack about the new piano player not being half as good.  One of the regulars, an army deserter by the name of Gordon Walker, says a thing or two about how the new fella might not be as good, but he makes it so they can all stop worrying about being sodomized.

Raum challenges him to a game of cards, buying him drink after drink, and prods at Gordon’s temper until the other man snaps and starts a fight.  They both get thrown out and Raum lets Gordon think that he’ll win the fight, only to knock the other man out with a staggering blow.  He loads the other man onto the back of his horse and takes him out of town.  What Raum intends to do isn’t going to be pretty or acceptable, but it’s necessary.

Gordon dies begging, wearing his guts on the outside, as Raum puts him down with a bullet in his skull after Gordon gives up the names of his two accomplices.

Ansem Weems drowns three days later, struck in the back of the head by the grip of Raum’s pistol and left face down in his own bathwater.

Lee Bender is the last.  Raum catches him alone, on the road back to his family’s property.  He lassoes a noose around the man’s neck and drags him all the way back to the hanging tree just outside of town.  Bender’s barely breathing when Raum fixes the rope over the brach and ties it to his saddle before urging his horse forward.  The last thing Bender ever hears is Raum’s voice.  “Shouldn'ta touched him,” he imparts, watching until long after Bender’s feet stop kicking.

He, Mo, and Pos leave Cold Oak the next morning.  Mo sits next to him as he drives the wagon, Pos settled on a makeshift bed in the back, calm under the influence of the laudanum that Mo’s administered.  The trip back to Cold Oak is smooth, if only because they keep Pos medicated to keep his fits of confusion at bay.

It’s not easy, getting Pos and Mo settled into the little house that Raum now owns.  Pos has a hard time with being in a new place and he forgets almost everything but his own name.  Never Mo, even if he can’t remember hers, and never Raum, much to Raum’s surprise, but he forgets how to count and to tie his shoes and to hold a spoon.  Things that he should remember.

Pos gets a little better when Mo starts working as one of Essie’s girls.  Raum brings him to the saloon one afternoon, to have some lunch with Mo if she’s not engaged, and Pos sits right down at the piano and starts to play.  He keeps playing, smiling his old familiar smile, and Raum shares a proud but pleading look with Essie, who nods her head and sweeps back upstairs without a word.

Pos plays the piano and Raum never shoots anyone again.  There are good days and bad days, but Raum doesn’t care as long as Pos keeps smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Repost of the NRFTW Western AU. All credit for the original characters is to the writers who breathed life into them.


End file.
